The Failed Recipes of 2013

December 31, 2013

In addition to all of yesterday’s wonderfulness in the form of all your favorite recipes from the year 2013, I would be pretending to be a better cook than I really am if I didn’t also reflect on the less delicious recipes of the year. To put it lightly, 2013 twas also the year of fails. Anytime you have a person vaguely self-taught in food and cooking with loosely organized ideas trying to make a food combination taste good, you’re probably going to get some not-so-happy endings.

There was a very strong pattern in the fails this year: primarily that they start with the word HEALTHY and end with DESSERT. I have no explanation for myself other than to apologize for trying to make weird and healthy ingredients try to taste like things that should only ever be buttery, sugary, and richly chocolatey. It’s the ultimate betrayal to self.

Here are the most memorable (or what’s the word for anti-memorable?) yuck-ster recipes of the last year.

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bites

Okay, I have a bone to pick with whoever had the idea to use trendy coconut oil in place of good old fashioned butter. Meaning, myself. They look like they might taste a little tint bit good, but that’s really only because of that one luscious little melted chocolate chip on top. Coconut oil instead of butter = N-O. They looked like flattened tennis balls and tasted like crumbly coconut. But worse.

Healthy Chocolate Banana Frosting

Here and now I ask for your forgiveness for these horrendous results of what started as just a medium-bad idea. The cupcakes were decent, so there was that. But the frosting was like something from another planet. I’m 96% sure it made noise when you looked at it. Globbity gloppy gloop.

Pomegranate Shrimp

I know you’re tempted to like this because it kind of looks good, but don’t you dare think that for one second. IT WAS HORRIBLE. I literally had to get up and go to the garbage to spit it out. It’s very hard to go wrong with a good pomegranate, so you can give me like one fourth of a bonus point for that, but the rest of this dish was just nauseating. I blame it on some combination of the quality of the Minnesota shrimp and my extremely over zealous seasoning with every herb in my spice cabinet. My major bad.

Swedish Christmas Bread

This delicious failure of a braided bread ring took four hours of my life to mix, rest, knead, rise, shape, and bake. And naturally it took another four hours of my life when it set off the fire alarm, crusted black stuff all over my baking pans, and required washing of my clothes and hair to get rid of the burnt smell. Special.

Healthy Cinnamon Pumpkin Blondies

Please block this from your memory. I don’t know what’s melting out of the middle but it’s no good, my friends. NO GOOD.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cake:

Remember when I baked a cake for one hour and ended up with hot goo? Yes. A flimsy aluminum pan filled with hot chocolate goo which I then ate in depression. I think I might have cried while spooning the chocolate into my mouth (not joking – it was my first baking experiment in the Philippines and I was convinced that this was the end.) FYI this eventually made it into my favorite recipes of the year because I learned how to appropriately use my no-temperature-marking oven in the Philippines. Recipe here!

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

At one time you could actually pick these up without them turning into ash instantaneously. But then I got a hold of them.

Mango Pie

I dove headfirst into the Mango Pie the second it came out of the oven so it became Mango Smoosh. It was actually very delicious and I might have eaten about 3/4 of the pie. I mean, the Smoosh. And now this picture is really grossing me out.

No-Donut-Pan Donuts

As in, baked in aluminum foil rings instead of a mini-donut pan. In my mind it was total Pinterest bait. In reality it was… ugly. But at least I had that nice Valentine’s napkin.

“Perfect” Chocolate Chip Cookies

Perfect except for that they will break your teeth.

Chocolate Surprise:

I think this was something I tried to bake that was a completely flat fail, so I pressed nuts into it and froze it. But honestly, I don’t even remember, which is probably best for everyone.

Roasted Beets

Also known as dirt in your mouth. I think I spy some rosemary in there as an attempted taste-cover-up, but no such luck, my friends. Dirt is dirt.

Cherry Almond Tea Ring

The version my mother in law makes uses crescent dough and a cream cheese filling which, against all of the magical odds of crescent dough and cream cheese filling, I managed to completely destroy. Tea ring –> tea pile of semi-burnt messy, although as you can see from the picture, it was a lost cause waaay before hitting the oven. Beyond salvageable, drowning in filling, cut and arranged like a three year old did it. I do not deserve to be married into this tea-ring making family.

There you have it, friends. Or can I still call you friends after all that? Like, if I promise to never commit these food crimes again? Puhleese?

Here’s to less burning, fewer healthy desserts, and more of the good stuff in 2014.

Comments

I love that you shared these with us Lindsay! It made me laugh. Here’s to all your outstanding culinary successes in 2013 and the beautiful pictures you took of them. Can’t wait to see what you create in 2014. Happy New Year to both of you!

Jen and I just read your post in the early morning glow of Christmas lights… and giggled like crazy! Thanks for the laughs. We are impressed by your perseverance and good humor. We’re already looking forward to next year’s “recipe fail” post! (p.s. Jen wants me to let you know that she is definitely NOT looking forward to the change of year, in general. It freaks her out. Change just ain’t this girl’s thing. You can relate, right?!)

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As a newbie blogger, making dessert presented a problem, no one has a sweet tooth in this neck of the woods except for dark chocolate bars. Solution I made desserts on Fridays or Saturdays took turns in distributing them to among nearby friends, who brought them to their work as samplers.

So grateful to Pinch of Yum—# 4 reference site to my blog— thechewinn-nova.com per Jetpack. Thanks a lot—jean

Like other commenters, I really appreciate seeing the failures. There’s nothing more devastating than putting time and effort into food just to find that the result suuuuuucks. The sad results sometimes make me think that I should stop cooking altogether. But we persevere!

I love the fail posts that are coming out right now — it’s totally encouraging to someone who, well, tried to make a lot of things this year. Some of which exploded, flattened, burned, or otherwise took a turn for the very bad.

And a good reminder that foods that look good don’t always taste good, and vice versa… I’m fairly new at blogging, so I’m not experimenting much yet so not many failures yet. But you’re not going to see that perfectly beautiful dish of stuffed mushrooms we had on Christmas – because they didn’t work. When I fix them, I’ll take a new picture… and hope they’re as pretty…

Oh thank you so much for sharing this. I laughed and smiled- you have such a good sense of humor- and I can so relate. You’ve inspired me to save my bad photos and failed attempts for my own post. Surely,the fails make the successes all the more sweet! Happy 2014! Thanks for all your hard work and I wish you much more success in your business and personal life

Hilarious. I HOPE HOPE HOPE the Swedish Christmas bread braid wasn’t a Carpé Season special, or I may never be able to look you in the face again.
(PS – I think my favorite is your first failed Philippines cake that you ate in sadness, with a spoon. We are the same person.)

Thank you for sharing these little kitchen mishaps Lindsay — it makes me feel SO much better! My most memorable fail this year was trying to bake coffee bars. I wanted them to be like a lemon bar (shortbread / cookie dough crust with a soft, sweet milky coffee filling), but somehow, they defied the laws of physics. I baked the crust, poured the filling on top, popped it back in the oven, and the filling sank BENEATH the crust and baked underneath! So crazy.

I think it’s totally admirable, endearing, & relatable that you’ve shared all your kitchen failures from the last year. It happens to the best of us! Here’s to lots of success in 2014! Happy New Year, Lindsay!

This is hysterical! Thanks for sharing. The next time I have a kitchen failure, I’ll try to suppress my burning hot rage and snap a picture to laugh about later. Happy New Year! Looking forward to lots of Pinch of Yum in 2014!

hahahhaha I got a good laugh, this post is absolutely hilarious and one of my favorite posts I have ever read! Thank you for sharing! My friend and I were just yesterday looking at pinterest recipe fails and were dying laughing, so seeing this today was perfect, I sent her the link immediately-although your pictures are still amazing.
Happy New Years!

I was laughing so hard about the burnt bread, and my husband wanted to see it. Then he says, have you ever done anything like that?? Little does he know. Thank you for sharing, we all have our share of kitchen disasters! Happy New Year..♥

Thanks for sharing your successes and failures with us. You are so talented and when experimenting in the kitchen you are bound to have some dishes that end up in the trash. I’ve cried too when dinner turned out to be a disaster, but sometimes I have to laugh at myself when my enthusiasm gets the better of me and a dish turns out to be a mess. I appreciate knowing I’m not alone in my kitchen mistakes. Here’s to a great 2014 in the kitchen and out.

This is hilarious! We all have complete and utter failures in our lives and in our businesses – and this is a great way to remind ourselves (and others) that we all eat some ‘humble’ pie every now and again. Thank you!

This was such a great post that I made my husband read it and chuckle along. :-). I don’t normally comment on blogs but I thought its about time I tell you that you’re my favorite blog to follow! So thanks for the great recipes as well as the personality that shines through the posts- making me feel like I know you! Happy new year to you and Bjork.

Hey, wait! That mango pie looks really good! Do you think you could find it in your heart to show us how you made it? Perhaps…mango cobbler or something?

My worst one this year was to make oatmeal cookies with dehydrated apples mixed in. For some reason It didn’t occur to me to soak the apples a bit first so the cookies came out like crumbly sponges, except, bad. So dry they almost caused our heads to shrivel up. (sigh)

My husband and I laughed so hard that we cried! Thanks for this hilarious post. So great that you shared your failures with all of us and made us laugh because we can all relate! Happy New Year to you and Bjork – you guys are the best!

HILARIOUS! I tried to read these while brushing my teeth and had quite a mess to clean up afterwards. I remember having the same experience while serving in the Philippines.. Or oven only had ON and OFF! Took a lot of failed recipes before the kids at the orphanage got to taste any

I loved that you shared these with us! I enjoy a good fail every now and then. We are all human. I have had my fair share these last few months, both with food and photos. I debated about posting them and just decided that sometimes a good blog needs a dose of humor and folks should see the person that goes along with it. So, I now have a “fail” tag for posts. Ya know, in case I need it.

LINDSAY YOU ARE A FABULOUS HUMAN BEING!
Posting all of these in the first place is so admirable! Most people just post the best recipes of 2013, but your post reminds all of us that no one is safe from mistakes. I remember the tears pricking the back of my eyes as I opened the oven to find a sticky, gooey, mess of sweet rolls, or when I took a bite of cookie that tasted like straight up soap on the outside.
We connect over experiences like this because we all have something to contribute. So thank you for this lovely and hilarious post!
Happy new year!

THANK YOU for making me laugh and feel better about all my failed recipes attempts this past year too. I especially sympathize with all those “healthy dessert” failures. Story of my life, especially lately with trying to come up with healthier ideas to start the year… I’m coming to the conclusion that nothing will really match up to a good ol’ unhealthy dessert.

Ha! What a fun post – I never take pictures of my craptastic recipes. I’m totally going to do that this year. Though I must say, I can’t have dairy and I sub coconut oil for butter all the time, and I usually have great results. It’s totally delish. Your first two recipes of the cookies and frosting look tempting to me, and so do the pumpkin blondies. I guess beautiful photography can be deceiving sometimes. Happy New Year!

It’s always so refreshing to see culinary fails, especially when they come from a person who normally creates such delicious and beautiful food. It makes my own kitchen disasters a little less frustrating when I can just remember that I am not the only one who has them!

Hi Lindsay, this post is just too funny! As a matter of fact, I just pulled a very disappointing batch of ‘healthy’ muffins out of the oven two seconds ago. I thought that it would be nice if I came up with a less-than-100-calorie muffin recipe so that even people with new year’s resolutions could enjoy some guilt-free muffins

Like you said: it’s basically impossible to make ‘healthy’ taste like ‘dessert’ (or cakey breakfast, in my case).

They weren’t disgusting, but definitely not something I would put on my blog either!

Thanks for this! (Makes me feel better about the new cinnamon roll recipe I tried this morning for some guests- they woke up to a house filled with smoke from the filling overflowing in the oven…) Happy New Year!

Too funny! I love seeing these. I get so bummed out when I make something that tastes like dirt, ash, or something unmentionable. There’s nothing like putting time and effort into a dish or recipe, and then burning the heck out of it on accident. Not that I’ve done that. This shows that it’s possible to spin those mistakes and mishaps into something funny. Thanks for that!

Great idea to show everyone how human you are with your mistakes. I always smile when I think of you making pancakes with your fourth graders a few years ago…
Smiles for our bonus day off… I think I will go in on Monday just for a short time just to get my head in the game. Happy new year!

Hi Lindsey! This is probably THE BEST food related post I’ve ever read. I mean EVER! Your humor is to die for! I’ve visited pinch of yum for the first time and I’m glad I did. This post made me laugh like crazy! You don’t find such things on a food blog and quite honestly this post is really refreshing after reading ‘recipe only blogs’.
P.S Ashes and dirt cracked me up! I still can’t stop laughing! Great job!

You are hilarious! Thanks so much for keeping it real, nobody’s perfect! And don’t feel bad about crying over the chocolate cake, I accidentally made cookies with bread flour because my dad mislabeled the containers, and I totally cried when they tasted absolutely terrible. No shame.

This is really funny and novel – imagine all of us trying to share our successful recipes and here you are sharing all the failed ones with the world. I guess this is what makes your blog so endearingly different and honest. I am still rolling in laughing!

OMG – I’m shocked to find out that you are human after all {grin}! Loved this post, Lindsay, because I think readers assume that we bloggers post every recipe we make and don’t realize that we, too, make mistakes, horrible messes and/or create inedible recipes! Thanks for brightening my day and even if the food you made was terrible, as always your photos are beautiful!

I love that you shared these! Sometimes I think I’m the only person who has recipe mishaps, so I’m glad to see I’m not alone! All of your posts are usually so delicious and perfect-looking, but it makes me like your site even more to see the ones that turned out not-so-perfect. Thanks for keeping it real

Absolutely love this! It’s so honest and down to earth and REAL. So many blogs you read are so glossy and beautiful, but make you feel like s*t because you know your own attempts usually don’t turn out like that. And what you show here is how often things just don’t at all work out the way you wanted

I know the feeling of “that’ll-shine-on-my-blog/Pinterest”, only to then come out the oven burnt, flat, pale and ugly… and all that effort that went into it…

Anyway, great blog love all the photography. I’m trying to improve my blog and make it more interesting for readers, do you have any tips? Would be great to hear from you about how you did it.

Hi Miriam! Are you talking specifically about improving photography? I have an ebook with some tips and tricks that I’ve learned, you can find it here: http://pinchofyum.com/tasty-food-photography Thanks for the comment!

I’m sorry for the less than wonderful taste tests you had, but it’s nice to know that other people also have struggles in trying to create new recipes or finding out some recipes are not as wonderful as we hoped. Thanks for the post!

If you want beets by themselves, try them steamed and then sauced w/orange juice and honey. If you want them roasted, use a mix of cut-up vegetables and autumn fruit: carrots, beets, potatoes, winter squash, onions or leeks, garlic, tart apples, and what-have-you, mixed with some olive oil and your choice of herbs (Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset, for a shortcut). … Add pears and walnuts near the end of roasting, and then gorgonzola (or the like) and a splash of balsamic vinegar at the very end. Before mixing the whole batch in the olive oil and herbs, I precook the cut-up potatoes in the microwave, because these usually cook a lot more slowly than the rest. Can cover at the beginning, but roast uncovered at the end. Low to medium heat, 1 to 2 hours? — Well worth a try. (You can tell I don’t follow exact recipes.)